Dear Mark:

Basically, you chose to live with the woman you married and she deceived you and brought her mother to live with you without your consent.

She didn’t ask for your consent because she either didn’t value it, didn’t care how you would feel about a daily situation of years and years to come, or she was afraid you will say No, and figured she will trap you in this situation and that it will be difficult for you to set yourself free from it.

So how do you keep living and “find balance” with a woman who doesn’t value your feelings, and/ or who purposefully trapped you?

anita

Dear Mark:

The positive aspect in this situation is that you don’t have children with your wife of two years. Good thing. I don’t see any solution to this situation other than you going to see a divorce lawyer, explain to the lawyer the nature of the deceit: “She agreed to let her mother stay with us, without consulting me”, and with the advice and guidance of your lawyer, take the first step. See what happens next.

You wrote: “I seem to easily assume that victim mentality”- in this case, as you described it, you really were a victim of deceit.

“I am also always setting myself up for failure by putting myself in these types of situations, allowing someone to take advantage of me… I am now 58 years old”-

– somehow settling into another bad situation simply because it happened before, doesn’t make sense. How can you possibly be okay with a bad situation because .. there were bad situations before. I understand that you are 58 and not 28, but your next ten years will feel like a very long time, each day will seem very long, living this way.

You are  not thinking something like: I am 58 so might as well suffer for the rest of my life, do you?

anita

Dear Mark:

I understand you hating this, that you didn’t want this to be your experience, once again. But look, really, you are not too old to learn and make better choices today!

I remember some time ago I thought to myself: what is the use of trying to get better, to be emotionally healthier.. it is not like I am going to get my life back, be 20 something or 30 something and re-do things. Might as well stop trying and just accept misery.

But like you suggested yourself, it doesn’t work that way. It is possible to feel even worse than you do, at 59 and 69. Better prevent that escalation of misery at 58.

Keep talking (typing, that is) to me here, if it helps, and I will reply every time.

anita

Dear Mark:

You are welcome. This is going to be difficult. Better not make it more difficult than it has to be. It is possible that if she fully understands that you may divorce her, that it will get ugly, depending on circumstances. If she needs you  for financial reasons, and if she needs you so to keep her mother (and herself) in the country, she may threaten you with whatnot. Or she may try to further deceive you.

It may be better for you, if you sense it getting ugly, to see a divorce lawyer sooner than later, and before she does, so that you can protect yourself and prevent problems, following sound legal advice as to what you should be doing next.

anita

Dear Mark:

A summary of your situation based on all your posts here: at 50, living in the U.S., divorced (a previous ten year marriage to an alcoholic woman who you feel took advantage of you), you met a woman who was born in another country, to a very different culture,  who was away from her home country at that point for 11 years, never married but has an adult daughter living in the U.S.

At about 56, the two of you decided to get married and planned for the wedding to take place in her home country. Her two sisters who live in the home country “changed the plans” to a new plan: you pay $9000 to fly six people to the U.S. for the wedding to take place in the U.S. You flew in her mother and two sisters first, about two months before the wedding, and the other three (her father, brother and brother’s wife) later, closer to the wedding date.

Sometime after the wedding, her two sisters, brother, brother’s wife left back to the home country, as well as her father who flew back to the home country without his wife. His wife, the mother of your wife, stayed in your house, away from her husband, two daugthers, son and daughter-in-law, having a six month tourist visa.

Early on in her stay there was a plan that she visits and stays with cousins in New Jersey, she did indeed visit them but “she was back in a few days”. Next there was a plan that she stays with her granddaughter, your wife’s daughter in Virginia, “that lasted about 2 weeks”. Lastly, there was another plan- that she lives in France with other family members. She indeed flew there, “got sick, and came right back again”.

At this point her mother overstayed her visa by a year and a  half, and “if she leaves, she can’t come back for ten years”. Your wife “believes that she is culturally obligated to take care of her mom and wants her to stay”, she intends to try and get her a green card.

Her mother doesn’t speak English, she “cleans, cooks, and does the laundry.. never gets in the way”, except for the way of your sanity (“driving me crazy… I am sliding back into some depression”). You and your wife had four blowouts over the issue of her mother’s stay.

My thoughts today: maybe her mother is not as “never gets in the way” type of woman- there is a long list of people who do not want her to live with them (and/ or she doesn’t want to live with them). This is the list: her own husband,  her two daughters who are living in the home country, her son and daughter in law, other relatives in the home country, cousins in New Jersey, granddaughter in Virginia, and relatives in France.

Maybe, just maybe you are not the only person she is driving crazy.

If I understand correctly, your wife did not see her mother in person for 19 years before marrying you. After 19 years, as the wedding was materialing, the cultural obligation she mentioned,  to have her mother live in her home,  kicked in.

It is possible that of all the homes she lived in, yours is the biggest and most beautiful? Maybe the other people with whom she lived are aggressive and you are quiet and timid and your wife passive, so it is her best bet? I don’t know.

If you want to take it from here, Mark, please do: is my summary accurate and what do you think about the points I brought up?

anita